Kota Kinabalu:Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) said it was bullied by the Umno-led BarisanNasional (BN) when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed was Prime Minister. Its President Datuk Seri JosephPairin Kitingan said after attending the Rural Development MinistryHari Raya open house in Sembulan, Monday. "If I were to look back, during the time of Dr Mahathir, of course we were bullied." He said the over the years, therehave a number of cases where people have raised the issue of a BNcomponent bullying its partners. However, he said the most important is to sit down and discuss the issue in a roundtable meeting in the spirit of the BN. He also said that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had commented on the issue recently. Abdullah said that Umno had neverbullied its partners in the BN and blamed the opposition parties forcoming up with such an accusation to deny the people's support for theruling coalition. He said that if Umno had bulliedits partners, other component parties would have left the BN a longtime ago. PBS left the BN in 1990 and rejoined the coalition a decadelater. Meanwhile, Pairin said MCA wasonly thinking of itself when it proposed two deputy chairman posts inBarisan Nasional (BN) with one of them filled by an MCA leader. He said since the issue was brought up in the open, it meant that the MCA is using the subject as a political tool. While the proposal is not anurgent issue, he felt other parties might demand similar recognitionshould the extra BN deputy chairman post be created. "If you create an extra (post), why not another one…what about Sabah and Sarawak," he said. He was asked to comment on astatement by former MCA Youth chief, Datuk Liow Tiong Lai at the MCAYouth delegates conference in Kuala Lumpur recently. Liow had said that the extra postis necessary to reflect the position, importance and representation ofall the component parties. Pairin, who is Deputy ChiefMinister cum Rural Development Minister, however said in the 50 yearsthe BN has been operating, the system of one Chairman and one DeputyChairman has been working very well. Nevertheless, he said that suchsuggestion should be presented in a more formal manner through aworking paper for consideration and discussion within the BN roundtablemeeting. However, he stressed that morepressing and important issues such as the implementation of variouspromises to complete unfinished development programmes should be givenmore priority. "We all ought to try and belevel-headed and to ensure that we do not bring ourselves and thecountry into a situation where we would find ourselves in difficulty tocope," he said. He said that political partieswhich intend to be champions for the people would only make thingsworse if they terlanjur kata (go overboard in their statement). "In the BN spirit, we all ought to sit down together and talk in a roundtable…this is a very sensible way. "We must not fall into the trapof getting our emotion all worked up to the extent that we cannot thinkrationally," he said. Pairin said that in all they do,they must think in the context of what is good for the country ingeneral. He expressed hope that political leaders would help bringabout a more sober situation to that the family spirit of the BN couldbe maintained. Personally, he said thatirrespective of whether an extra post for deputy chairman is created,the most important is power sharing. "It's all a question of equitable sharing, fairness and justice and feeling of a win-win situation," he said. He said by establishing anotherpost, the government would have to fork out extra money when they aresupposed to be prudent during the economically challenging period. Also present were his assistant ministers Datuk Sairin Karno and Datuk Ghulam Haidar Khan Bahadar.